The Summer of the Bear

by Bella Pollen

  Roddy paused dramatically and raised his eyes to Jamie’s face. ‘Of frrrrright,’ he repeated awfully. ‘Now, can you imagine a death like that?’

  ‘Yes, it would be horrid,’ Jamie agreed politely, ‘but Roddy, what’s it got to do with the bear?’

  ‘Why, it was sight of the bear that killed Fergus, right enough. Terrified him to death! No man’s heart is strong enough for a sight like that.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Roddy’s labyrinthine thought process had finally led Jamie to a dead end. ‘I thought you said the bear had gone home.’

  ‘I said the bear had gone all right, but I never said he’d gone home. No, indeed.’

  ‘Then where is he?’ Jamie gripped the edge of the table.

  ‘He’s escaped.’

  ‘He’s what?’ Letty stopped wiping down the table.

  ‘Aye, the bear’s run off and frightened poor Fergus McKenzie to death. I’m surprised you’ve not heard!’ Roddy said with satisfaction. ‘Why, the beast’s escaped and he’s been loose and wild on the island these many few days.’

  27

  Over there, can you spot him? the islanders ask. Fishing in the loch; clambering up the rocky face of Taransay; running on all fours across the mouth of Aivegarry? Most are surprised he’s still free. An eight-foot-four-inch anomaly loose on a sparsely inhabited, predominately flat island measuring twelve miles by fifteen.

  The community divides into two groups. Those who see him but don’t recognize him for what he is and those who have never seen him, yet identify him in every lump of seaweed or rusting oil drum. His is the dark shadow that falls across the window of their crofts at night. He is why their arthritis is flaring up or the reason they argue with their wives.

  He is their demon chimera, their Frankenstein’s monster.

  And what a fleet-footed bear he is! Spotted coursing through the heather over at Loch Borrath, whilst at the same time taking a stroll ten miles east, across the ridged dunes of Stinky Bay. The wrestler’s grizzly is a hostile bugger, an aggressive beastie. Every smashed lobster pot has been attributed to his foot, every carelessly mended gate to his unlawful entry. Then he is a skilled and ruthless predator, tearing the heads off salmon and strewing the island with the flesh of savaged red deer, and so now human and animal alike tremble at the mere thought of him.

  In reality, though, he has yet to leave his cave. He has killed nothing. Eaten nothing.

  And the hunger is beginning to hurt.

  28

  Bonn

  Disappointment. That was the best the combined investigative powers of MI6 and the British government came up with. Nicky Fleming, disgruntled employee, passed over for promotion, had sought revenge on his country by filtering some as-yet-undiscovered information to an as-yet-undiscovered source. Then, unable to live with the guilt, he had confessed to his wife in a ‘suicide note’ and cast himself from the embassy roof. Simple. Tidy.

  Six days after they had questioned Letty, Porter and Norrell returned to London. The autopsy report was clean. No abnormality detected. The verdict was recorded as suicide. File and case closed.

  There was one flaw in the in-house trial of Nicky Fleming. That he was guilty was accepted as fact. But of what exactly, no one was sure. No recent documents had been discovered missing, there was no sign of files being copied. Evidence of an affair was not forthcoming. Nothing seemed out of place, except, of course, Nicky Fleming himself, dead and broken on the unforgiving ground, and then there was the letter. A confession, they’d argued. The investigation was as thorough as it was useless and by the end of it, there were no more answers than at the beginning.

  ‘They can’t leave it like this, Tom, they can’t.’ Letty paced the kitchen. ‘You know him better than anyone. You know he wasn’t capable.’

  ‘Of course not.’ Tom spread his hands in a gesture of helpless sympathy, but in the weeks following Nicky’s death, Letty had become expert at picking up on the nuances of people’s tones. Could she have imagined it? Tom was the last person from whom she would expect it – nevertheless, it had been there, the faintest hesitation in his answer. A certain inflection. She looked at him intently. She knew his face so well, the serious expression that masked a dry humour, the hawkish features, more suited to henchman in a film noir than a civil servant of the government. They had met by chance, on Piccadilly in a downpour, and ended up sharing the taxi they’d both been hailing. Had he courted her? She had never been convinced; certainly he was diligent in his friendship, taking her to the theatre, to the odd party, but then Nicky had come along . . .

  ‘Make them dig deeper, Tom,’ she said. ‘Make them keep the file open until his name has been cleared.’

  And there it was again. A flicker.

  ‘Tom?’

  ‘Let it rest, Letty, maybe it’s for the best.’

  ‘For the best! Dear God, how can it be for the best when everyone believes Nicky’s a traitor?’

  ‘The harder you push for answers, the deeper they’ll dig. Every minute of Nicky’s life, every aspect of your marriage will be under the microscope.’

  ‘I don’t give a damn. There’s nothing there. Nothing.’

  Tom was silent.

  ‘You don’t believe in him, do you?’ Her voice began to rise.

  ‘Letty, you must understand how ruthless the machinery of government can be . . . Nobody’s life can stand up to this much scrutiny. I’ve seen it before. They will grind you down until there is nothing left.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ she said hollowly. ‘You don’t believe in him. I can see it in your eyes.’

  ‘Letty’ He gripped her arm.

  No, don’t touch me.’ Once she started trembling she couldn’t stop. She slumped in a chair and covered her face with her hands. ‘How could you?’ she whispered. ‘You, of all people.’

  A muscle ticked in Tom’s cheek. ‘Trust me in this, Letty, the last thing you want is for them to delve any deeper, for Nicky’s sake,’ he said. ‘For everyone’s sakes.’

  Letty lifted her head. ‘Protecting your position, Tom?’

  ‘That’s not fair.’

  ‘Then what is it?’

  He hesitated.

  ‘Tell me, goddamnit!

  ‘All right, Letty, all right.’ He sat down heavily. ‘Look, about nine months ago Nicky and I had lunch at the Travellers Club. He told me he’d come into contact with someone. Someone he needed to help.’

  ‘What do you mean? Who, where?’

  ‘East Berlin.’

  Letty felt a pain in her backbone as if her vertebrae were starting to crumble, one by one. ‘Who?’ she repeated.

  ‘Letty, I don’t know. He asked only whether he could count on my help.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘He wouldn’t say’

  ‘So what did you tell him?’

  ‘That I couldn’t possibly evaluate what he was asking out of context but that it was insanity to be involved in anything underhand, particularly in East Berlin.’

  ‘But you agreed to help, of course.’

  ‘I told him that whatever it was, he must talk to the Ambassador, go through the official channels.’

  ‘You turned him down?’ she said incredulously.

  ‘Try to understand, Letty. A man in Nicky’s position is particularly vulnerable. Nicky would have to assume that anybody with whom he came into contact would likely be an informant or a potential plant. You have no idea the internal soul-searching that goes on in assessing the risk factor of any chance meeting, let alone one in the GDR. For Nicky to become entangled with someone in East Berlin would mean going against all his instincts, all his training.’

  ‘So why would you think him capable of such a thing? Why are you convinced it was underhand?’

  ‘Because, had it been above board, there would have been no reason to ask for my help.’

  ‘And yet he came to you.’

  Tom stared unseeingly at the table. ‘You think I haven’t turned it over and over since?�
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  ‘Have you, Tom?’

  ‘Letty.’ He reached for her hand again and the briefest of memories came to her. A London dance, Tom’s arm about her waist. One minute he’d been looking down at her, a smile in his eyes, the next he was looking over her shoulder and a shadow had passed over his face. It was as if he’d known, even then, before she and Nicky had ever met.

  ‘You never wanted us to be happy,’ she said. ‘Right from the start.’

  ‘That’s not true.’ Tom looked startled.

  ‘You can never truly know someone, can you? You never know who your friends are until you really need them.’ She watched Tom flinch. The thought had come from nowhere but as soon as she voiced it, it gained traction.

  ‘Nicky was your recruit.’ She was glaring at him now, her eyes brimming with misery, and as she cast around for an even larger stone to fling at him one came to hand. If Nicky was under suspicion then why not Tom, who had been so closely involved in Nicky’s career. Tom, head of the Northern Department who came to Bonn all the time, travelled often to Berlin. The leaks had been small . . . unconfirmed. If Tom had crossed any lines then how expedient for blame to be laid at Nicky’s door. ‘Is there a reason it suits you to distance yourself from him now?’ she said, and the accusation in her voice was impossible to ignore.

  Tom pushed back from the table. ‘Don’t lecture me about loyalty or friendship,’ he said bitterly. ‘I have been a better friend to Nicky than you will ever understand.’

  ‘No. You betrayed him, you betrayed us both.’ She could see him trying to keep his temper in check, but she didn’t care. She was in the grip of some kind of madness – and it felt so good to vent her own anger.

  ‘You talk about knowing someone. Well, you’re right,’ Tom flung back at her. ‘Nicky loved you with all his heart, but he has never been the man you thought he was.’

  ‘How dare you.’ She rose and slapped him in one swift movement. ‘How dare you try to poison me against him, he was a better man than you’ll ever be. I know one thing about my husband. You were his closest friend and he would have taken a bullet for you.’

  Her hand was still raised when he caught her wrist. ‘It doesn’t matter about me, Letty.’ And his voice was harsh. ‘Hold on to what you believe. That’s all that’s important.’

  29

  Ballanish

  ‘There’s something wrong with my heart,’ Jamie announced, skipping along the sandy path behind his sisters. He clutched his chest solemnly. ‘Sometimes I feel the wind blowing right through it.’

  ‘Then zip up your jacket, stupid,’ Alba said, ‘and don’t fall behind.’

  Jamie skipped faster. In spite of the ache in his chest, he felt cheerier than he had done in weeks. Fate could not have stuck its nose in his business in a more obliging way. Now he could search for the bear and keep a lookout for his father at the same time. He touched the bottle in his pocket. He’d already launched three maps from different points on the island, not including the one he’d dropped over the side of the ferry. If his luck held, maps in glass bottles would soon be bobbing on the ocean towards every corner of the globe.

  ‘I say we do this methodically’ Georgie squinted towards the sea. ‘A different beach each day. It’s bound to be in hiding. So we’ll have to track it.’

  ‘Like check for footprints or poo?’

  ‘Splendid idea, Jamie.’ Alba grabbed her brother and pushed his head towards the acidic splatter of a cowpat. ‘Is this bear poo, Holmes? Is it? Is it? Take a sniff and tell us, why don’t you?’

  ‘I think this is cow poo,’ Jamie offered nervously. He calculated the odds were low that his face might end up actually immersed in the steaming mass, but Alba’s unpredictability was unnerving. At the penultimate moment, she released him with an amiable ear twist. ‘Cows are utterly disgusting,’ she declared.

  ‘I thought you liked them.’ Jamie moved discreetly to Georgie’s side and took her hand. ‘What about the Ambassadress?’

  ‘The Ambassadress is different. We have an understanding. This lot are a bunch of Nazis. Look, why are they standing in a circle? Do you think they have a plan?’

  ‘There’s no plan,’ Georgie sighed. ‘They’re cows.’

  ‘I don’t like the way they’re rounding us up. Get away, you herd of hamburgers. Shoo!’

  Jamie giggled. When Alba was in a good mood the sun shone into every dark corner of his world. And Alba was in a good mood. Now there was a purpose to the day; life had improved. ‘By the way,’ she mused, ‘it’s far more likely the bear will be tracking us rather than the other way round.’

  ‘Why would it track us?’

  ‘We’re food, idiot.’

  ‘The bear doesn’t eat people. It eats steak.’

  ‘A human can’t get a steak on this island, let alone a bear.’

  ‘It could eat fish.’

  ‘It doesn’t know how to catch fish. It’s a tame bear. It doesn’t know how to do anything but wrestle. I’m telling you, when it gets hungry enough, it will track down the smelliest, most putrid thing on the island – you, Jamie – and then bingo, we’ll be minding our own business and it will leap out from behind a rock.’

  ‘But I want it to leap out from behind a rock.’

  ‘And chew your face off?’

  ‘The bear won’t eat me.’

  ‘It’ll eat you if it gets hungry enough. I’d eat you if I was hungry enough. I’d eat you even if I wasn’t hungry – just to get rid of you.’

  ‘What if he tried to walk across the Bog of Stench?’ Adroitly Jamie changed the subject.

  ‘Then the Bog of Stench Men will drown him,’ Georgie said, ‘and no one will get the reward.’

  ‘I don’t care about the reward, I just don’t want him to drown.’ Jamie put his binoculars to his eyes and stared at the bog as though expecting to see the bear’s paw being sucked down through the reeds.

  The Bog of Stench was a stretch of wet marshlands between the house and the machair that had proved so dangerous to both people and livestock that the council had taken the unusually energetic measure of fencing it off. Bog of Stench Men, a creation of their father’s, were ghosts of malevolent Viking invaders who rose up through the ground in order to prey on small children. According to Nicky, the Bog of Stench Men moved so quickly across the land that they left shreds of their skin on the sharp barbs of the fence. Whenever Jamie saw these black strips flapping in the wind, he would shudder with fear until Alick told him they were bits of the plastic bags used by the islanders to transport silage.

  Their father had been a master of scary stories but Jamie had never taken to the concept of being terrified. Alba, on the other hand, relished it. Once, when she’d been little, Nicky had driven her and Georgie to the farmlands of Liberia, and she’d asked him about the deep furrows in the sandy earth. ‘Ah yes.’ He knelt down and spread his hand over the undulating soil. ‘These are made by a monster who lives under the land. Whenever he gets thirsty, which is often, he sucks all the moisture out of the soil until the ground collapses.’ Alba had loved the idea of the soil-eating monster, but that night, when Nicky had come to kiss her goodnight, she had stared at him with burning eyes before turning her head to the wall.

  ‘What is it?’ he stroked her hair fondly. ‘Why won’t you kiss your old Dada?’

  ‘Because you told me something scary,’ she said furiously, ‘and Mummy said it wasn’t true.’ Nicky had never understood that she wasn’t cross because he had lied to her – she was cross because she had so badly wanted the monster to be real.

  A bird was skimming low over the reeds. Distracted, Jamie followed it with the binoculars. ‘Is that a curlew, Alba?’

  ‘How the holy hell should I know?’

  ‘What do you think though?’

  ‘I don’t think, and what’s more I don’t care. Birds are pointless.’

  No, they’re not.’

  ‘Jamie, you don’t think you’re pointless but that doesn’t mean you aren’t.’ />
  ‘But I need to know for my bird book.’

  ‘Why, so you can mark down that you’ve seen a curlew? How thrilling. But let’s examine why it’s so thrilling, shall we? Are you going to shoot the curlew and eat it? Are you going to adopt it or convert it to Christianity? The question you have to ask yourself is – will identifying this bird change your life in any way, and if the answer is no, then I think we can all agree that birdwatching is a pathetic hobby, and that birds along with cows are disgusting, soulless animals.’

  ‘To you,’ Jamie said with uncharacteristic spirit, ‘but not to me. Can’t you think about me for once?’

  ‘Jamie, you think about you the whole time. If I were to think about you as well, it might create a dangerous imbalance in the universe.’

  ‘It couldn’t do that. Thinking doesn’t weigh anything.’

  ‘Fine, smarty-pants.’ Alba snatched the binoculars from him and aimed them at the sky. ‘Yup, it’s a curlew.’ She turned the glasses sideways and machine-gunned the bird. ‘And now it’s a dead curlew. Oh, dearie me.’

  Jamie giggled. ‘I love you, Alba.’ He moved to hug her but she pushed him away. Jamie looked momentarily defeated then ran to catch up with Georgie. Alba was unrepentant. If she had her way, all physical manifestations of affection would be forbidden, but knowing that an outright ban would bring some degree of censure from her mother, she had settled for imposing restrictions. Kissing was not allowed under any circumstances and hugging was rationed to one every third day. Still, sticking even to this Alba found irksome.

  ‘Hey, there’s someone on the beach,’ Georgie shouted.

  ‘What?’ Alba ran to the top of the dune. Below them, a man and a woman were hovering over a small child who was troughing into a wet channel of sand with a plastic spade. ‘Tourist pig dogs!’ Alba narrowed her eyes. ‘A pox on them and their plaguey brat!’